An errant Wikipedia contributor changed the name of the National University of Singapore (NUS) to the “National University of Sexual Misconduct” on NUS’ page on Wikipedia.
The act, which took place months after Monica Baey sexual misconduct case, was committed on 31 July. Thankfully, another contributor removed the incorrect edit by the mischievous netizen and corrected the name of NUS within minutes:
Other universities were not spared. The Singapore Management University’s (SMU) name was changed to the “Singapore Management University of Ang Moh” while Nanyang Technological University’s (NTU) name was changed to “Nanyang Technological University of China.”
Singapore University of Social Sciences’ (SUSS) name was also changed to the “Singapore University of Self Study”. All the changes have since been corrected by other Wikipedia contributors.
It remains unclear who the culprit behind the erroneous Wikipedia entry is and whether the acts were committed by one person or multiple persons.
Wikipedia is a multilingual online encyclopedia, based on open collaboration. It is the largest and most popular general reference work on the internet and features exclusively free content and no commercial ads.
Internet users are able to edit most articles on Wikipedia. As a consequence of the open structure, Wikipedia “makes no guarantee of validity” of its content, since no one is ultimately responsible for any claims appearing in it.
Concerns have been raised by several quarters regarding the lack of accountability that results from users’ anonymity, the insertion of false information, vandalism, and similar problems. -/TISG